


Seven Lessons from Home

by knitmeapony



Category: Changeling: the Dreaming
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 22:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10930887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knitmeapony/pseuds/knitmeapony
Summary: A story about my LARP character, the adventuring Eshu Captain Jamie Claudius Church, and the things she learned the last time she went Home.





	Seven Lessons from Home

  1. _I'm sure you've noticed I call myself Captain Jamie Doyle here_.    
  
Six in the morning and here she stood, bare feet on the cold Pietra Firma tile, staring into the bathroom mirror.  She wasn't looking at her physical body, not really, though you'd be forgiven for thinking so -- the deep purple robe hung open, and her fingers kept ghosting over the wounds in her shoulder -- the newest a fingernail scratch, the near-invisible a bullet graze, the oldest a deliberate scar cut into an ancient symbol.  She was staring more at the way each one marked her mien, too, one way or another.   _Mama would be so pleased,_  she thought.   _That my true name is closer to hers than it is to my own decision._ The name marked her skin, too, in ways she'd never admit.  She picked up the glass of champagne she'd rested on the edge of the sink and drained it dry.  It was a hard lesson she learned every time she went home -- no matter how much she ran from her roots, they were part of her.  Quatermain could call her a Connecticut girl all he wanted, but she was Manhattan through and through.    
  
She turned and cut back through the closet on her way to the bedroom, pausing to shed the robe and rifle through someone else's things until she found a nightgown to borrow.  Dark green silk with a touch of lace on the hem, probably usually kept for special occasions but _she_ was a special occasion and it would set off her hair and eyes quite nicely.  She tugged it on, then retrieved the clutch that she had strategically left behind on the vanity table last night.  _The mornings must be as perfect as the midnights_ , she thought, _or they'll stop believing in the magic_.   Methodically, almost absently, she took off yesterday's makeup to apply today's, fingers moving with an easy, practiced arc.   
  
She set a row of bottles and compacts in front of herself and set to work.  She hardly needed the mirror -- lucky, that.  She wasn't ready to meet her own eyes  this morning.  Her foundation went on like armor; her lipstick like hefting a shield.  She finally raised her eyes when all was well and looked at herself.  "Captain Jamie Claudius Church," she said quietly, smoothing a corner of her lipstick with the lightest touch of a finger. "Pleasure to meet you again."  
  
  

  2. _For all your wild adventures, your journey is within yourself._  
  
She leaned back in the chair and then picked up a brush to tend to her hair, still in perfect curls tho' it'd been two days since she'd had a moment to touch up.  She actually had to make a bit of a mess of it, deliberately, before she was satisfied.  She knew from long practice that too much perfection was intimidating in the morning.    
  
"I'm not very introspective," she said to the mirror, just as she had to her protege on the streets of the Eshu markets. "I don't care for it, much."   
  
She wasn't laughing this time, though, and she pressed her palms together and examined herself.  Scars visible, hair askew, but face perfect and body looking beautiful in the green.  Good enough.  She ran down her checklist and realized her eyes were still a little vacant and  glassy in the early morning light.  She knew she needed another drink or five before she could deal with her companion - but still, best to set the scene while she did it.  Two birds, and all.  She rose from the table and crossed into the spacious bedroom padding silently to where the bed dominated the space, raised up on a platform like a work of art in a museum.  She tugged down the blankets as she sat on the edge of the mattress, disturbing the nest just enough to make the sleeping woman within stir.  "Don't get up, Maggie darling, it's just me," she said, leaning in to press a kiss just behind her ear and another just under her chin.  "I'll put breakfast on, hm?  Coffee or hair of that vicious dog who bit us last night?"    
  
The woman's voice was deep and muffled as she laughed into the pillows.  "Whichever you're having."    
  
Jamie nodded, pausing to watch Margaret settle back into sleep.  She tucked her hair behind her ear and let her fingers trail down bare skin all the way to the edge of the blanket before finally, regretfully, moving away.  "Dream deeply for me, darling," she said quietly - eyes down and away from the mirror as she passed it in the hallway.  It wasn't a conscious motion - just a habit.  She didn't worry about noise once she was away from the bedroom; Maggie's husband wasn't due home for another twelve hours, so she could move with caution but without fear.  
  
  

  3. _Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right_.    
  
She wielded everything in the kitchen as if she were to do violence.  Thoughts of Maggie's husband always drove her into a fit of irritation.  He was an investment banker, and exquisitely good at his job, but he'd done terrible things to Maggie - he'd told her no, over and over again, until her whole world had closed down.  When Jamie'd first met her, at some terrible fundraiser or another, she'd seen the grip of banality almost immediately.  Maggie'd been going through her life numbly, half on pills and half on inertia.    
  
On buying art: "it's just an investment."    
  
On her career: "I don't need one of my own."  
  
On the cookie-cutter fundraisers she threw like clockwork: "Why change a winning formula?  
  
Even her fashion was a competition, regimented and regulated.  For a woman so young and with such obvious, exquisite taste it was an absolute _tragedy_.  
  
From that first day, Jamie'd taken it upon herself to change Maggie's days and nights.  She invited her to meet new artists at their studios, to fly off to new cities at a moment's notice for no other reason than to see a play, have a meal, and on one memorable occasion, to see the Northern Lights.  She reminded her that one did not simply become fashionable by buying  _this_  season's collection, but by inspiring  _next_  season.  Bit by bit, they'd become dear friends, and Jamie had even convinced her to audition for a show, some local little musical with no budget but a dedicated crew with endless heart.  Maggie had a sweet, clear voice, and while she didn't win the lead she had won herself a lovely role.    
  
That's where they'd been last night -- in a dirty little community theater, where Maggie made her debut and Jamie sat front row center, handing off a five-figure cashier's check to the director at the cast party afterwords.  "I didn't want you to think this was a bribe to give my dear friend a better role," she explained, "but only sincere appreciation that you've made her so happy."  She found out later that Maggie'd done the same thing over her husband's objections, and they were the toast of the party after that.  Donations were supposed to be anonymous, but in this community that only meant that everyone knew a bit slower.  
  
"You see, darling? We've accidentally made their entire year twice over," Jamie said with the warmest of smiles. "You  _can_  make a difference.  Little choices matter."  The hope, the warm and delighted  _promise_  that radiated from Maggie was enough to make Jamie suck in a breath.  Maggie'd mistaken that for something else, and she kissed Jamie to say thank-you, and Jamie wasn't objecting in the slightest -- but for a moment it was the glamour that was her most attractive feature, and Jamie drank it in, all night long.  It made her feel more herself, the way going Home had, and she brought the spatula in her hand down hard again as she remembered her most recent trip.  Irritation flowed through her veins again, a different kind of familiarity.  
  

  4. _So many objects have traveled through your fingers.  Every object but one._    
  
She'd never heard of the Casque before it'd been mentioned to her, and that burned her.  Jamie thought of herself as an expert in magical items, and she knew that was why it had been brought to her, why the name had been brought to her attention.   _Still, I should have known ahead of time.  I should have already known._ She turned to start the coffee maker and then investigate the liquor cabinet for a fine mixing whiskey.   _All that talk about the sword and the stone, and you'd think that the Casque of Winter would have come up_.  She needed to let that go, to move past the frustration and towards the  _seeking_ bit of the quest, but she was like a dog with a bone.  Chopping mushrooms and tomatoes was enough to distract her for a minute -- all the careful knife skills she'd learned from a chef in Paris were long gone, but she could manage to keep away from her fingers if she focused.    
  
The irritation worked its way out of her blood slowly, and she took a breath to refocus on the right parts of the equasion.  Now she had a quest.   _Another_ quest, anyway, and this time one she could share with Morgan.  She smiled at that, at the thought that she had another cousin, another Ojo to share with, walk with, perhaps even teach.  Not the finest of mentors was she, she accepted that, but she couldn't help but feel protective of any young Elegbara just now setting out on their path.  She would take her back home some time soon, to make her final choice, but they already knew.  The wheels were in motion, the boat in the river, the current running fast and strong.  Maybe she'd be a _griot_ some day, with that book of hers.  Jamie smiled and licked tomato off her fingers before sweeping the pieces into a pan with her knife.  Morgan had such a life in front of her.  
  
This quest would only be the beginning.    
  

  5. _Of course we'll be together tonight.  She has a list_.   _I am a legend.  
  
_ So many strange things begun on one simple trip.  She found herself thinking of what she'd heard Quatermain say to the other new Chosen.  She didn't know whether to applaud the man or sock him right in the nose, but either way he was shatteringly, irritatingly, disturbingly  _right_  about so many things.  Jamie felt, rather than heard, Maggie come into the kitchen and had to bite back the name 'Allan' when she felt a hand on the small of her back.  "Hello, beautiful.  I didn't expect you for another half an hour."  Maggie offered a shy smile -- and Jamie could not, would not have that.  There would be no shy women in her heart or in her bed.  "Come here, darling," she said quietly, stealing one kiss and then another, letting Maggie merely relax into it.  Now it was Jamie's fault, Jamie's kiss that began it all.  Now Maggie could absolve herself of some of the guilt that'd come with all this.    
  
"Coffee," Maggie said, by way of explanation.  "And don't forget we've got notes and a rehearsal today."  
  
"Ah, damn," Jamie said with a sigh and a resigned smile. "Here I hoped I'd have you until his plane touched down."  That made Maggie flinch, and Jamie reached out to soothe that flinch away.  "He's not here, darling, and he won't be.  Not between us nor between anything we do.  He simply doesn't factor in.  You have your own life, yes?  And so does he.  When he chooses to be on the wrong continent for your theater debut, you don't owe him a thing."  She touched Maggie's jaw with a gentle finger.  "Yes?"  Maggie nodded and Jamie nodded in return.  "Coffee," she offered, almost as a reward, and Maggie took it gratefully.  "Could I ask the favor of a pair of slippers, lovely?  I never go through another woman's shoes unless I have permission. Much too intimate."  Maggie laughed and retreated to the bedroom again, and Jamie's shoulders tightened once she no longer had to put on airs of being carefree.   
   

  6. _I know it is your first time Home; that is why I am educating you_.    
  
Everything about her life was facades lately, about things other people didn't know.  Yes, she joked about her parents but did anyone really realize what a danger they could be?  No one had met Christina, but that didn't mean she wouldn't turn up out of the blue.  Quatermain was a relic and manageable, but even  _she_  had to admit it'd been a lovely dinner and it'd gotten her blood up in more ways than one.   _Dangerous,_ that one, and only for behind closed doors.  Maggie thought she was a socialite without a care in the world.  Morgan thought she was a mother figure -- she would hear the howling from here to Ilesha when that was finally shattered.  
  
The book gave her excuses to be wherever she wanted to be, but that didn't mean it was honest with her, nor she honest with the others about what it was trying to do.  
  
And then there was what she'd learned at the shipyards, about who worked there, about the other names of the ship's patron, about what a boggart would say and what a boggan would do.  What a goblin  _could_  do.  She thought of the broken, corrupted balefire and felt sick to her stomach, and she put the egg white omelette on the back burner so she could take a step away and get a sip of water and a much more effective sip of whiskey, right from the bottle.  
  

  7. _Even when the story ends, it is still there, below.  You create it as you speak it.  
  
_ "Everything all right?"  Maggie brought the slippers and a worried expression with her from the bedroom; Jamie smiled warmly and nodded, for just one moment not trusting her own voice.   
  
"Just fighting the inevitable hangover.  I'm reasonably sure I'm still drunk and there I should like to stay."  She wrapped herself around Maggie as she examined what was on the stove, resting her cheek on her shoulder and closing her eyes.  "Breakfast will do me good, and then a bath if you'll let me wash your hair."  Maggie turned, a curious expression on her face, and Jamie answered the question before it was even asked.  "Do let me dress you today.  I want you to feel as beautiful out there as you did in there."  
  
Maggie lifted her chin slightly, and they both pretended that a blush wasn't staining her cheeks.  Jamie kissed the backs of both of her hands.  "Think about it.  After breakfast."  Maggie nodded and turned to get down plates and knives, and Jamie caught her breath in her throat again, turning to the stove to hide it.   _I speak of love, not lust_ , the elder Elegbara had said, and she felt the rebuke deep in her stomach.  Even when the story ends, it's still there, under the surface, lurking in the darkness.  She realized, far later, what she should have said.   _I have taken and left something in every bed I have rested in,_  she told herself, and took another breath, ready to face Maggie again.   "Pour me some of that coffee, darling, and if you could put a bit of the whiskey in it you shall have my undying affection."    
  
Three hours until she had to leave.  She'd make the most of it.




End file.
